“The Bay Area Book Festival will have something for all kinds of readers,” said Cherilyn Parsons, founder and executive director of the festival. “We’re especially excited about bringing authors from around the world — with 12 countries confirmed so far.”

Free to the public, the nonprofit festival (sponsored by The Chronicle) will be spread out like a street fair over a half-mile quadrant in downtown Berkeley, where a number of streets will be closed to traffic. In all, 150 exhibitors will participate. There will be a children’s arena, a storytelling stage and (this is a literary festival, after all) a beer and wine garden.

Panels and presentations will take up such wide-ranging subjects as Nordic noir, 50 years of the Grateful Dead, the rise of national surveillance, and trans voices in literature.

All children under age 12 will receive a free book at the festival, which anticipates handing out 14,000 titles donated by Half Price Books and distributed by the East Bay Children’s Book Project.

Kids won’t be the only readers taking home free books. “Lacuna,” an installation of 12 alcoves designed by the art collective FLUX Foundation, will be constructed of 50,000 donated books — all of which will be free for festivalgoers.